I think that he looks a little emaciated in the top left picture (look at the hands), however it looks like it still would have been a fabulous production (if any of us were even daring to question how good it would be to start with!)
I have also posted a transcript of an interview that the BBC have done with the photographer, Kevin Mazur, who talks about the rehersals and how things were looking.
Following on from last year’s post (it is really weird looking back at it), I thought that I would also recognise that today marks my second year in London – hurrah!
To be honest, I still find London as a city a poor substitute for Manchester, however I think that’s just homesickness etc talking as obviously I recognise that London has a far better transport infrastructure, amenities etc (though I think Manchester has a better standard of housing, and prefer seeing occasional streets without chicken shops on them heh!!).
I find myself saying this a lot, however it really is my friends (and obviously Greg!!) who keep me wanting to stay in London. I am very fortunate to have such a fab group of people around me, and I definitely think that they’re worth hanging around for!
I can still remember the day I moved very clearly; Marc and I had to say our goodbyes (which was horrible), and then that awful (and silent!) 9 hour ride down the M6 in the front of a white van with two rather butch blokes with whom I shared nothing in common! To be fair, I wasn’t really in the mood for talking with them, what with me being so upset and apprehensive about everything. When we got to London, we came in via Willesden (I was staying in Kensal Rise originally) and it took us an hour to make a ten minute journey due to the poor driving skills down here… that was my first proper impression of London.
My first evening in London was a little scary… I was in a gorgeous apartment, with more floor space than you could imagine, however for the first time in several years, I felt so alone. Cue me logging into MSN and ending up chatting to Danny, and thus everything that has happened to date happening.
So yeah, 30th June marks a real turning point in my life. A lot happened on this day, some of it good, some of it bad, but inevitably all for the better, I’m sure.
Two years on, I am very happy with where I am, I am fortunate to have a wonderful fella in Mister Greg (whom I love lots and lots and lots) and a marvellous bunch of friends who I really enjoy spending time with. Hopefully I can build on this further in the coming year and gain a few new friends in the process (I’m lovely I am! hehe).
I am *really* looking forward to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movie (due out in March 2010).
Johnny Depp is playing the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter is the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway is the White Queen. Also starring are Alan Rickman as Caterpillar, Christopher Lee as the Jabberwock and Mia Wasikowska as Alice herself.
Alice, aged 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn’t remember.
New production images have been released today, ready to hit cinemas worldwide, and they look amazing! (These images have been sourced from USA Today)
Hoping that it looks as dark and twisted as it’s coming across in all of the pre-release stuff. So much that you could do with this story, and I hope that it’s done well! A gothic twist could be just what this story needs!
Great to see Depp and Bonham Carter together again – they will no doubt fit the roles well – however it’d be interesting to see Burton mix the casting up a bit his future movies
On Bank Holiday Monday just gone, I decided to go out for a walk that I’d been planning for a while; down the Thames Path between Windsor/Eton Riverside and Maidenhead.
I’d especially wanted to get a glimpse of Oakley Court, which was the setting for The Rocky Horror Show and many other Hammer House Of Horror Films.
I had no idea that the whole walk would be so beautiful! Windsor/Eton is gorgeous (if not touristy… which I guess one is to expect), and some of the villages that I encountered on the way up the path actually elicited a gasp from me when I saw them!
I managed to get some awesome photos on my Nokia N95 camera phone – please open them up to full size and let me know what you think… I think the level of detail that the lens has captured is remarkable!
My one tip for people planning on doing this stage of the walk – consider doing it in reverse! It took me 4 trains to get back home (Maidenhead to Slough; Slough to Windsor Central; a walk across town to Windsor/Eton Riverside; a train from W/ER to Clapham Junction [you can go on to London Waterloo]; and then another train back to where I live from Clapham Jct). After completing the walk and being all hot and yukky, faffing around with additional trains is the last thing you want to do! Start at Maidenhead and work your way back down. In my opinion, Windsor also has much more to offer the weary traveller than Maidenhead does.
This has to have been one of the most gadgety walks I have been on too; I had my Nokia N95 with me, my blackberry, mp3 player and a few other bits and pieces – definitely no way that I was getting lost with 3 different GPS mapping devices. If only we’d had all of this in the Scouts! heh.
In addition to providing details of the walk below, I have also created a vimeo video of all my pictures from the walk. It’s my first one, and done late at night, and so some of the wipe effects are a little rubbish; forgive me!
[I reckon that Vimeo is best viewed in full screen - to do this, click on the outward arrows icon situated next to the volume control]
I have taken the text for the suggested walk and the local history information from HERE and added some of my own pictures and comments to it. I would hasten to add that the walk probably comes in around 9 miles (signs on the path indicate 8 miles walking on the Thames Path, and I would add in a mile for walking to/from the respective stations – which is not covered in this guide).
The rural towpath remains on the Buckinghamshire bank, with views of a film set house and Bray village before passing under Maidenhead’s Brunel bridge. There are no refreshments on the towpath between Winsor and Maidenhead except in season at Bray Lock.
WINDSOR is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Wyndesore’ meaning ‘winding shore’, which probably refers to the Thames’ twisting course. The castle, begun as a fortress by William the Conqueror, is the Queen’s main home and the resting place of many past monarchs, including Henry VI. The exterior is the result of extensive restoration by Sir Jeffry Wyatville for George IV. When a massive fire swept the west end in 1992 water was pumped from the Thames and two years later stone for the restoration came by barge. The only painting destroyed was one which George III had wanted to burn almost 200 years earlier. He also gave Franz de Cleyn’s painting The Last Supper to the parish church where curate JS Stone wrote the hymn The Church’s One Foundation. The next door Guildhall, where Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, who had to add extra pillars (in fact not quite touching the ceiling) because the council thought it looked unsafe.
Almost opposite is a plaque recalling HG Wells’ apprenticeship to a draper, portrayed in Kipps and The History of Mr Polly.
WINDSOR BRIDGE is at least an 800-year-old crossing point. Both road and river traffic paid tolls, and in 1736 it was possible to walk over alive for 2d while being carried in a coffin cost 6s 8d. Tolls ended in 1897 after court proceedings, but the tollkeeper’s cottage remains as part of Sir Christopher Wren’s House Hotel on the Windsor bank. The present 1822 bridge was the first arched bridge on the river. Road traffic was banned in 1970. Until Eton College’s 550th anniversary in 1990 boys were not allowed over the bridge into Windsor unless wearing a tie and jacket.
The Thames Path crosses the bridge to Eton. (The towpath continues briefly on the Windsor side, but the ferry now operates only in late July when a fun fair is on the Eton bank.)
ETON College, dominating the village, was inspired by Winchester College and founded by Henry VI. Seventy poor scholars formed the school nucleus and today there are are still 70 ‘King’s Scholars’, although most of the school consists of ‘Oppidans’ paying fees. The chapel was built in the 15th century with the intention of later adding a nave to what is really just the east end choir. Part of the uniform is a black tail coat, worn in mourning for George III. Eton’s upstream riverside is known as the Brocas after the Brocas family who gave the land to the college – Sir John de Brocas from Gascony was one of the Black Prince’s favourite knights.
Turn left down Brocas Street. Beyond the Waterman’s Arms and the Eton College boathouse there is the Brocas meadow, where the towpath joins at the ferry point and main mooring. The way is over grass with a fine view back to the castle. After the wood there is a railway bridge.
WINDSOR GREAT WESTERN BRIDGE, carrying the Great Western Railway (GWR) branch line from Slough, was designed by Brunel and opened in 1849 just months ahead of the London and South Western Railway which was building the Black Pott’s Bridge.
After two footbridges (the first is Lower Bargeman’s Bridge) over Cuckoo Weir, the path is on an island only spoilt by the Queen Elizabeth (Windsor relief road) Bridge. On the far bank beyond the bypass is Clewer church on the Mill Stream.
CLEWER William the Conqueror attended services at St Andrew’s. Buried in the southwest corner of the churchyard (noted for its wild flowers) is Sir Daniel Gooch, GWR’s first locomotive engineer, who decided to make Swindon a railway centre. Also buried there is Nanny May (Mary Ann Hull), who looked after Queen Victoria’s children as listed on the stone. A now closed convent in nearby Hatch Lane once received prostitutes sent by William Gladstone from London for rehabilitation. (Clewer church can be reached by going up the path on the upstream side of the bypass bridge, over the bridge and down into the village. Follow the road round to the
right.)
Although the main path now cuts the corner, the Thames Path stays with the towpath. The paths are united at a bridge when the towpath leaves the island. There is a view of Eton Wick inland. Behind the trees on the far bank is Windsor Race Course and by the path there is soon a riverside seat at a bank known as Athens.
ATHENS was an Eton College bathing spot where rules required that ‘boys who are undressed must either get at once into the water or get behind screens when boats containing ladies come in sight’.
Soon after Boveney Lock there is a last view of Windsor Castle – the upper turret and flagpole can just be seen above the trees. Soon there is Boveney church.
BOVENEY CHURCH, which has a Norman window, may have been a chapel for nearby Bolney Court, which belonged to Burnham Abbey three miles north. It is now in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches, which has recently completed work on conserving the 15th-century weatherboarded and timber-framed tower.
After lonely Andrew’s Boat House the river bends to give a view of substantial riverside houses at Ruddle’s Pool and then Windsor Marina. After a mile the path is level with Oakley Court, which will have been glimpsed earlier.
OAKLEY COURT was built in 1859 as a residence for an Englishman who hoped the Gothic style would make his homesick French wife happy. General de Gaulle is the most famous Frenchman to have visited. In 1950 the house was purchased by Hammer Films who used it for making St Trinian’s, Half a Sixpence and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In 1970 the 92-bedroom mansion became a hotel.
Just beyond Queen’s Eyot is Bray Marina on the far bank. On the towpath, by an iron cyclists’ mile post, an unmarked footpath leads inland, passing through Wallbank Grove (planted 1996) to Dorney Court.
DORNEY COURT dates from about 1440 and stands on slight high ground to avoid flooding. The house, ‘one of the finest Tudor manor houses’, has been the home of the Palmer family since 1600, and among the portraits is Sir James Palmer, Governor of the Mortlake Tapestry Works. Dorney means ‘bee island’ and honey is sold here. It is also where England’s first pineapple may have been grown and given to Charles II who visited here. The church dates from the Norman period. The house, used as
‘Syon’ in the film Lady Jane, is open on bank holidays in May (and the preceding Sun) and Sun–Fri in August; 1.30–4pm; admission charge; www.dorneycourt.co.uk.
A short distance beyond the Dorney footpath turning, the towpath passes under Summerleaze Bridge.
SUMMERLEAZE BRIDGE opened in 1996 as both a footbridge for public use and a support for a conveyor belt carrying gravel from an excavation for a 1½ mile rowing lake developed by Eton College on the left bank. The bridge is named after the contractor from nearby Maidenhead.
Just before reaching a line of residences at Dorney Reach, where the path is well maintained, there is the beginning of Monkey Island.
MONKEY ISLAND probably means ‘monks island’ as it belonged to Merton Priory on the River Wandle (see section 2) which had a house upstream at Amerden Bank. But in 1738 the 3rd Duke of Marlborough decorated the fishing lodge ceiling with
monkeys. The island’s foundations for building had been strengthened when barges brought rubble from London after the 1666 Great Fire. The lodge has been a hotel since 1840. Edward VII and Queen Alexandra had tea on the lawn with three future sovereigns – George V, Edward VIII and George VI. H.G. Wells visited several times with Rebecca West who describes the island in her novel Return of the Soldier. The island could only be reached by boat until a footbridge was built from the right bank in 1956. The ‘Birmingham Six’ spent their first night of freedom here in secret after being released from prison in 1991.
Beyond a gate the way is through a copse and under the M4 Bridge (1961) to Amerden Bank. Soon there is Bray Lock and, after Headpile Eyot, a clear view of Bray village on the Berkshire bank. A seat is directly opposite The Waterside Inn
BRAY is famous for the song Vicar of Bray although which vicar is uncertain. Simon Alwyn adapted to the many changes of the Reformation years but the song probably refers to the Stuart times. The church is early 14th-century and among those married there is snooker player Steve Davies. The village is noted for celebrities including Rolf Harris who came because it reminded him of his “river’s edge home in Perth”. Gerald Ratner lived at upstream Somerville (with the American wrap-around
balcony). On the Waterside Inn jetty is the warning ‘restaurant only’ in case anyone thinks it’s still The George pub rather than Michael Roux’s 3 star establishment opened in 1972. Diners have included the Duke and Duchess of York who came just
two days after announcing their separation. Journalist John MacCarthy first met friend and campaigner Jill Morrell whilst on an outing to the inn – the group made alternative arrangements when they saw the expensive menu. The inn is next to Ferry Lane but a ferry no longer runs across to the seat.
After reaching a house the path is gravelled and then metalled to pass under Maidenhead Railway Bridge.
MAIDENHEAD RAILWAY BRIDGE, completed by Brunel in 1839, carries the Paddington-Bristol railway line and appears in Turner’s 1844 painting Rain, Steam and Speed on the GWR. These are the largest and flattest brick arches ever built and many thought they would collapse under the first train. A shout or whistle from below will echo. The bridge, widened in 1893, partly rests on Guards Club Island – the club was on the far bank.
When you come to the below bridge, you have reached Maidenhead. To leave the Thames Path, keep to the right hand side on the private road, and walk up to the bridge, turn left, and go over it.
N.B. – This post is NOT suitable for viewing in the workplace!
So, t’other day, I posted the cover of Attitude magazine for us all to drool over…!
Having just been and purchased the magazine, I must say that it looks even better up close!
Attitude are sometimes sensitive about people posting pictures from their current edition of the magazine online; however a few scans seem to have surfaced and have not been objected to on the famousmales forum, which I thought that I’d post for the benefit of you all! I hasten to add, these are not my scans (and will be removed if requested)!
I really would suggest that folk GO OUT AND PURCHASE THE MAGAZINE!!! This month’s edition is really rather good!
If you can’t be arsed going down to WH Smith, you can now purchase an online copy of the magazine (cheaper than buying a physical copy) – well done Attitude; I rather like this idea!
I’ve just signed up for a subscription with them; so no more trying all of the WH Smiths in Waterloo Station and trying to guess which one is the only store that hasn’t sold out!
Cracking job by the folk at Attitude… keep it up! (no pun intended!)
Ben Adams:
Austin Drage:
Kenzie (Blazin Squad):
It’s also worth noting for those perhaps unfamiliar with the gay press, that whilst we often get a diverse range of people appearing in gay magazines, it really doesn’t make them gay! No inference is drawn as to sexuality by folk who are featured in Attitude (though we can all still wish *really* hard for it to be so!! )
Last night, I went to see P!nk at the O2 Arena, London.
WOW!
Mister Greg and I are big P!nk fans, and I’d always said that if she went on tour, I’d be first in the queue to purchase tickets. You can no doubt imagine my excitement when a tour was announced a few weeks later!
I grew up listening to P!nk, I was in college and doing the whole ‘teenage angst’ thing at the time that P!nk started releasing the ‘darker’ stuff (compared to the R&B stuff, which I wasn’t too fond of). It seems weird to think that I’ve kind of gone full circle… I’d like to think that I am so much more mature than I was when I used to throw myself wildly around the indie room at Poptastic Manchester to ‘Just Like A Pill’.
To say last night was an audio visual extravagance would be an understatement! The set was absolutely fab (a twisted funhouse, of course in keeping with the latest album), and the whole show was really well produced I thought. Great costumes, frequent changes, and a great use of the dancers / musicians in the act.
I was stunned with the acrobatics of P!nk and her dancers, but at no time more so than during ‘Sober’ (which is my favourite P!nk track anyway).
Phenominal!
How on Earth she manages to keep singing and keep the emotion of the song going whilst throwing herself about 60 foot in the air, I have no idea!
If I had to sum up the staging, costumes and general all round experience, I’d say that it was like going to see Evil Kylie with an added twist of ‘anthemic’ attitude! Production wise, everything was on the same grand scale as you would get with an artist such as Kylie, but with that awesome and unique P!nk twist.
It was fun to see P!nk interacting with the audience and she really did seem to be enjoying herself. I can only imagine how tiring a show like that must be, but her energy on stage was electric.
A great selection of songs on this tour, though the time really did whizz by much too quickly. I think that a really good balance was struck between old and new, ‘anthemic’ and delicate. I’d forgotten just how much emotion P!nk is able to convey through her performance.
As I say, “Sober” had to be my stand out moment of the show, but highlights would include “Just Like A Pill”; “U + Ur Hand”; “Ave Mary A”; “Glitter In The Air”; “So What” and, dare I say it, P!nk’s cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody”! These were songs that the crowd really got behind and the atmosphere in the arena literally just took off!
As a finale, “Glitter In The Air” was a great choice… I especially liked the staging (see pictures at the end, the ones with the red canopy) – t’was a nice choice to finish with such a lovely song rather than go for something perhaps more obvious and air-punchy. Unfortunately my battery ran out right at the end, so the above YouTube clip shows the end of ‘Glitter’ that I didn’t manage to photograph.
The general atmosphere at the O2 was awesome… the combination of their fantastic audio set-up, the fantastically punchy music (the ambiance of Sober really is electrifying in a 20,000 seat arena!), and the crowd was one of those ‘wow’ moments! Oh, and of course, it’s always good to hear 20,000 people singing ‘fuck’ as loud as they can heh! Even I had a bit of a dance and did the air punching thing… and alcohol wasn’t even involved, cor! That said, if a P!nk record ever comes on, I’m always one of the first up!
I am seriously considering purchasing tickets to see P!nk again in December (there have been extra London dates announced). Although I normally watch shows at the O2 from our suite, I’d considered the seating (in depth, naturally!) and reckoned that sitting in Block 112 would be best for this show, largely due to the projected stage. Glad to see my decision was a good one, and it was definitely the better option (standing looked very crushed!).
It would seem that P!nk is going to be spending pretty much this whole year touring, despite having done a lot of Europe already, Australia is next on the cards, before a return to Europe for an encore in the Autumn/Winter.
Even now, sat at work 24 hours later, I am still buzzing from the gig, and very few shows that I have been at have managed to sustain that effect! (and believe me, I’ve seen a lot!)
If you’ve got the chance to see P!nk, take it! You definitely won’t regret it!
For anyone interested, P!nk is also now on twitter.
I managed to take 283 pictures of the show (erk!). I have included a highlighted selection of them below:
(click any picture to bring it to full size)
Unfortunately my camera let me down on some of the shots (it doesn’t handle spotlights very well)…. some look awesome, but only on a small screen such as my camera phone… gah!
SET LIST:
The O2 Arena, London (Saturday 2nd May 2009)
[NB, I've sourced this from Google, and whilst I disagree with the order slightly, my memory as to the correct order momentarily fails me, I can confirm that all the songs below are there!]
“Highway to Hell” (Intro)
“Bad Influence”
“Just Like A Pill”
“One Foot Wrong”
“Who Knew”
“Please Don’t Leave Me”
“It’s All Your Fault”
“I Touch Myself” (Divinyls Cover)
“U + Ur Hand”
“Ave Mary A”
“I Don’t Believe You”
“Crystal Ball”
“Trouble”
“So What”
“Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely)”
“Family Portrait”
“Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen Cover)
“Sober”
“Crazy” (Gnarls Barkley Cover)
“Funhouse”
A bit of a back-dated post as I’ve been meaning to write one for ages, but have always found myself short of something (namely some good photos!). Although Carlos, Tom, Greg and I were sat three rows from the front, dead centre (hurrah for work!), I decided that I’d much rather watch the concert and enjoy it than spend the whole show taking pictures! Fortunately, Mister Greg obliged to let me pinch a few of his pictures, and so I’ve uploaded those instead ;o)
I really really want her skull thing!! It would be so great to ride that into work each day! hehe.
It was great to see that this concert was also shown at the launch of the digital channel “4 Music” (a rebranding of ‘The Hits’) – if that transpires to be the DVD footage, then that would be awesome!!
I really loved “Flower” (below) – which she only ever does on tour - along with other gems such as “Your Disco”, “Like A Drug” and “The One” made this an unforgettable night. Her rocky ending to “Slow” made for the only time that I’ve actually enjoyed this song!
I could rave on for ages, however we’d be here for pages and pages and I’d still only be up to the third song hehe!
Instead, I came across this excellent review on Last.Fm which I thought folk may enjoy reading more than my own ramblings hehe!
I’d heard that Kylie’s team of designers, choreographers and video artists had done well to out Showgirl her last tour and that the widely reported £10 million price tag of the tour suggested we were in for a treat, but it became something else entirely once album track Speakerphone started buzzing ominously through the speakers as the black curtain wrapped around the stage elegantly fell…
What you had for £10 million was the most intoxicatingly bizarre visual resplendence that amount could buy. Most of it would most certainly have been used to design, orchestrate and finally power the enormous visual panels kitted along the far wall and the stage floor itself, as well as a fair amount used to portray the various patterned sequences and scenarios beamed through in digitally-enhanced Technicolour gloss, most featuring Kylie in all variety of cyber-kitten get-ups from Kabuki to space vixen to Night Porter-style rebel. Another sizable chunk would have been spent on the physical setpieces themselves, among which were a black pyramid that rose from centre stage to reveal the titular star wrapped inside a detailed Japanese headdress before the night’s first truly memorable song performance, Come Into My World, and the enormous golden skull she saucily strapped herself onto and that carried her centre stage about thirty feet in the air for Like A Drug. The costume changes were innumerable, even for the intensely acrobatic dancers; a mixture of different pop culture reference points, the most eyecatching being her tiny sky blue cheerleader outfit for Heart Beat Rock and her first costume which most was most probably inspired by the villainous angelic robots that populated her appearance on BBC’s Doctor Who last Christmas, a long flowing black tunic with gold details and a nuts’n'bolts-style chunky halo.
Being a show fronted by an international icon as opposed to a celebrated musician, the event itself was very well-executed, nary a hitch, slip-up or crazy spontaneous moment to be seen or heard. For a show of such galvanizing virtuosity though, one could be forgiven for wondering if maybe the music itself could have afforded to be a little more adventurous in their arrangements, given that so much money was spent to necessitate one keyboardist, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, two back-up vocalists and a brass band trio. One of the night’s standout moments was the band finally rocking out in the fade-out to Slow, no doubt inspired by Tricky’s own punk-flavored interpretation on his new album. And fan favorites such as Confide in Me and the new album’s best kept secret Stars could have been added instead of the am-dram tongue-in-cheekiness of the showgirl interlude featuring a spirited-if-displaced version of Barry Manilow’s Copacabana (At the Copa). Understandably, it’s all in an effort to tick boxes for each denomination of Kylie’s huge fanbase, which embraces nursery school children as much as it does elderly party-rabblers, and the sheer glossiness of the whole shebang is pretty much critic-proof. Though Kylie’s own personality and influence on the night yielded some curious results, especially with her more recent work…
The first half was definitely slower and a little more robotic than the second and the influence of Kylie’s present-day peers were highly in evidence. The Gwen Stefani influence that seems to have eaten away at so many female soloists recently was in full swing, quite flagrantly so on the cheerleader atmos on the aforementioned Heart Beat Rock. Björk’s more recent oriental fashions and headgear were referenced for the Kabuki segment on the tour, which still provided some of the night’s better songs. Speakerphone and Nu-di-ty were daringly (and racily) performed in spite of their drawing the latest album’s most critical daggers, the latter especially sounding like a Britney Spears knockoff. And even if she managed to pull it off, the video display of Kylie in digitally spiritual rapture that provided a backdrop for her otherwise moving rendition of No More Rain quite inescapably, maybe even tastelessly, ripped off Madonna’s finest moments from the Ray of Light era. However, whenever Kylie finally gave in to her back catalogue of camp fun and frolics (which, let’s face it, is the single most defining and lovable attribute about her as a pop singer), it was the stuff of pop heaven, especially those that tested her upper register. The relentless bombast of Your Disco Needs You justifiably drew the loudest reaction of the night from the crowd, alongside Come Into My World and On a Night Like This. And thankfully, she knows how to pull off a great encore that quite elegantly traversed her latest (The One and Love at First Sight) and with one last camp gesture embraced the Stock Aitken Waterman days finally with I Should Be So Lucky.
The spit and polish of the whole night was precisely as shiny and calculated as the X album, but to draw a critical line under all of that would be unfair. Though Kylie embraces arty cyber-retro references in all of her songs and videos that allow listeners with a degree of so-called sophistication to enjoy her work, a Kylie album/show is about having a good time first and foremost, and on that level alone the performance last night was a success. It also must be said that her winning vivantism goes a long way in making all of this camp pomposity digestible, if not credible, herself keeping a playful handle on the show with trademark mid-show banter that encourages the audience rather than belittles them. X isn’t the best Kylie album, especially when compared to those indelible dance hits from years ago, but it’s still trussed up in the best possible package a pop star can provide for their fans and Kylie’s European tour ended on a fabulous note last night. If only this whole Gwen Stefani thing would just stop… :^/